The present invention relates to an improved electrical connector and a method of wire harness fabrication using the connector and more particularly to a connector of the type used for terminating a plurality of wires and connecting them to a like plurality of other electrical components.
The long accepted method of fabricating a wire harness including a plurality of spaced multi-contact connectors with individual terminal elements of the connectors interconnected by runs of insulated wires commences with positioning wire fanning strips on a panelboard adjacent to the desired placement of the various connectors in the fabricated harness. The wires are then typically individually run on the panelboard between slots in the fanning strips corresponding to their desired termination points along common routes corresponding to branches in the finished harness. After all the wires have been run as desired, the wires in the common routes are formed into bundles by means of cable ties or the like such as shown in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 3,872,547. Next the insulation is stripped from the wire ends, pin terminals are affixed to the wire ends and the pin terminals are inserted in the sockets of the multi-contact connectors. It will be appreciated that this method is expensive and time-consuming due to the number of iterative steps, and due to the tedious nature of the method, the assembler is prone to make wiring errors requiring expensive rewiring or, in an extreme case, scrapping of the harness.
An alternate method of fabrication has been proposed wherein the multi-contact connectors used have terminal elements adapted to remove the wire insulation upon insertion of the wire into the element obviating the need for manually preparing the wires. This method requires the use of wire spacing and holding jigs affixed to the panelboard and termination apparatus mounted on the jig for inserting the wires into the connector. Reference may be made to U.S. Pat. No. 3,859,724.